Demons (1985, dir by Lamberto Bava)
For today’s horror song of the day, we have Demon, a track from the soundtrack for the 1985 film, Demons. This song was composed and performed by Claudio Simonetti, who is best known as the keyboardist of Goblin.
The music video, incidentally, was directed by Michele Soavi, who also appeared in Demons as the mysterious masked man handing out free movie tickets.
Despite the title, 1965’s Frankenstein Meets The Space Monster is not actually about Frankenstein or his monster.
Instead, the Frankenstein of the title is Frank Saunders (Robert Reilly), an astronaut who happens to be an android. Frank was created by Dr. Adam Steele (James Karen, in one of his first film roles). Frank is designed so that he can go into space without making any of the mistakes that a human astronaut might make. He’s the next stage in the space program! With Frank sitting in a rocket, America will have rightfully conquered the Moon in no-time flat!
(Don’t waste my time with any of the international treaty crap. I don’t care how many other countries go to the Moon, it belongs to America because we landed their first. It’s the 51st State and someday, we’ll probably end up moving the federal government to the moon. Hopefully, we’ll just leave it there.)
Unfortunately, no sooner has Frank gone into space then he gets shot down by the Martians. Frank crashes in Puerto Rico and, with his face horrifically disfigured, starts to malfunction, Soon, he’s creating chaos all over the island and it’s up to Dr. Adam Steele — what a name! — to put a stop to it. However, before Frank is deactivated, he needs to meet the Space Monster (a mutant named Mull) and defeat the Martians.
Why are the Martians on Earth? According to a short, pointy-eared dwarf Martian named Dr. Nadir (Lou Cutell), an atomic war has led to the death of all the women on Mars. Personally, I think Dr. Nadir is lying because he came to Earth with a Martian woman named Princess Marcuzan (Marilyn Hanold). I think it’s more a case of almost all of the Martian women faking their own deaths so that they could get out of having to talk to Dr. Nadir. Seriously, Dr. Nadir is a little creep. Add to that, his Martian name actually sounds like an insult in English. Personally, I think he should come up with a new name if he wants people to listen to him. I would suggest calling himself Adam Steele but that name is already taken.
Soon, Martians are abducting bikini-clad women off of beaches in Puerto Rico. Can the Martians be stopped? Can Frank be restored? Will James Karen go on to have a distinguished career as a beloved character actor? Spoiler alert: the answer to the third question is yes. Indeed, one of the joys of this film is getting to see James Karen in a rare leading role. He commits to giving as good performance, even though the film itself is pretty silly.
Another joy of this film is the soundtrack, which is surprisingly good for a film of this budget and caliber. Just try to get That’s The Way It’s Got To Be out of your head! (In the film, this song plays as Frank prepares to go into space.)
That’s the way it’s got to be!
As for Frankenstein Meets The Space Monster …. I just can’t help it. I like the damn thing. It’s just so ludicrous and silly that it’s impossible for me not to enjoy. The film’s producers decided that they didn’t just want a robot terrorizing an island. They also wanted Martians and a mutant, as well! And we’re all better off for it.
Oh my God, I love this movie!
In this 1953 film, a gorilla wearing a diving helmet uses the Calcinator Death Ray to wipe out almost all human life on Earth. Only 8 people survive, among them a professor, his family, and Roy (future Eurospy star, George Nader). Ro-Man (George Barrows) is hounded by his superior to track down and destroy the survivors. Ro-Man does his best, though the humans prove to be …. well, they’re not really that resourceful. In fact, they’re pretty dumb. But Ro-Man is pretty dumb himself.
Regularly (and incorrectly) cited as being one of the worst films ever made, Robot Monster is an enjoyably absurd hybrid of horror and science fiction. Earth is destroyed through a combination of bad lighting effects and stock footage and the arguments between Ro-Man and his superior have to be heard to be believed. Robot Monster is actually a bit more self-aware than a lot of people realize. This is a low-budget Z-movie that realizes that it’s a low-budget Z-movie and which cheerfully embraces its identity. Robot Monster is a personal favorite and it’s a bit of Halloween tradition around these parts.
And now, enjoy Robot Monster in all of its black-and-white glory!
Last night, I watched the classic 2017 Lifetime film, Sleepwalking In Suburbia.
Why Was I Watching It?
I was watching it as a part of the #MondayMania watch party! We’ve been watching the Stalked By My Doctor films and Sleepwalking In Suburbia, along with being a stand-alone film, leads into the fourth Stalked By Doctor film. While I watched, I realized that I hadn’t reviewed this film yet so I decided to get on it.
What Was It About?
Michelle Miller (Emillie Ullerup) has a nice house in the suburbs and a successful husband (Giles Panton) but she also has a sleepwalking problem. At night, she’ll get out of bed, leave the house, and, while in trance, go inside someone else’s house and either have sex in the living room or join them in bed. She’s been diagnosed with “sexsomia.”
One sleepwalking incident leads to her having sex with her neighbor, Luke (Carlo Marks). Now, every time that Luke sees Michelle, he’s like, “When are you coming by again?” and Michelle is like, “What are you even talking about, weirdo?”
Michelle’s pregnant! Her husband is all excited but is he the father or is it Luke? And when Luke’s wife seemingly vanishes, Michelle suspects that there might be murder in suburbia as well!
What Worked?
What worked? The entire movie, that’s what worked! Seriously, this was one of the greatest Lifetime films ever made. It embraced the melodrama. The plot featured twist after implausible twist. The performances were enjoyably over-the-top and I defy anyone not to smile when the kindly doctor announces that Michelle has “sexsomia.”
Here’s the thing: sexsomia is a real thing. Now, if you look it up on Wikipedia, it redirects to “sleep sex” but this is a Lifetime film and it’s obvious that it was understood that “sexsomia” just sounds better than “sleep sex.” Was this film a realistic portrayal of sexsomia? Who knows and who cares?
The title was absolutely brilliant. Anytime you see the word “suburbia” in the title of a Lifetime movie, you know you’re about to see something special. And I have to say that the film made the suburbs look very nice. All the houses were big and well-decorated. No one in the Lifetime universe lives in a small house (unless they’re living in a trailer parker, which does happen on occasion.) That’s the way things should be.
Emillie Ullerup gave a great performance as Michelle. Her intense sleepwalking stare was one of the thing that made this film so entertaining. Giles Panton and Carlo Marks also gave good performance as two of the men in her life in her waking and sleeping life. The scene where Panton, as Michlle’s husband, reveals that he wants to handcuff Michelle in bed so that she won’t leave is both horrifying and slightly funny. “Not kinky!” her husband assures her.
Finally, the film ended with one of those out-there twists that Lifetime is known for. Seriously, when you’re in a Lifetime film, trust no one! The film’s ending was also open-ended enough that it allowed Michelle to return for Stalked By My Doctor: A Sleepwalker’s Nightmare.
What Did Not Work?
It all worked! This is a film that relentlessly and unapologetically embraced the melodrama in the best Lifetime tradition! When I talk about the best Lifetime films being self-aware without being too in-your-face about it, this is the type of film that I’m talking about.
“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments
Wandering around in your night clothes in the middle of the night? Hey, I’ve been there! Of course, in my case, I was actually awake and I was checking on a cat. I have never broken into a house while just wearing a slip. I usually at least put on a robe before doing something like that.
Lessons Learned
Lock the door before you go to sleep. And the windows!
Parkour!
Parkour was quite a thing for a while, though I’m not sure if it’s as big a deal now as it used to be. Back in the day, YouTube was full of videos of people jumping off of roofs, skipping up walls, jumping over tables, and rolling around in the dirt. The main thing I remember about parkour was that, whenever anyone jumped over a bench, everyone watching had to go, “Whoa! HE JUMPED OVER A BENCH!” I also remember that the Divergent films were an attempt to present parkour as the key to surviving a dystopian future.
2010’s Leap opens with a college student spotting a guy named Shane (Alexander J. Bonda) leaping over a railing on campus. When Shane is asked what he’s doing, Shane replies, “Parkour. It’s from France.”
Now, really, that should have been a red flag right there. It’s from FRANCE! You know, the same France that surrendered to the Nazis and then spent years whitewashing the activities of the Vichy government? French is a beautiful language and the country has given us some of the greatest films ever made. Actually, to be honest, I love visiting France but still, when it comes to self-defense, they’re perhaps not the the best role model.
Soon, Shane is teaching a group of college students how to do parkour. There’s a lot of parkour in this movie and, for the most part, it’s scored to some of the mellowest heavy metal out there. When Shane’s students invite him to Bible Study, it upsets Shane’s girlfriend, Crystal (Chelsea Raugast). When Shane and his students decide to build a Christian outreach program around parkour, they start getting threatening letters. “Who could be threatening us?” one of the student asks. “Atheists,” comes the reply. Soon, Crystal is chasing Shane across campus and the two of them get to show off their parkour skills.
I really do have to mention the chase scene because it goes on for several minutes and it really doesn’t make much sense. (Crystal, who is apparently looking to kill Shane, drops her gun just so she can chase him.) What’s funny about it is that, even while running for his life, Shane still has to show off his parkour skills. For instance, when he sees a picnic table in front of him, he doesn’t simply run around it. Instead, he jumps on top of it and then rolls off. It reminded me a bit of the classic 80s action film Gymkata, in which a city in Eastern Europe was full of random pommel horses so that the gymnast hero could show off his moves while fighting the bad guys.
Leap was made for $200 and the cast was largely made up of volunteers. I have a weakness for low budget passion projects and I was willing to cut this film a bit of slack but then I reached the Bible Study scene where a youth minister explained that HIV was God’s way of punishing the nonbelievers for failing to follow him and that was such an icky statement that I can’t overlook it. The film ends with the end times approaching and the promise of a sequel. Can parkour defeat the Beast? We’ll find out, I guess.
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983. The entire show is currently streaming on Prime!
This week, Ponch reveals even more hidden talents!
Episode 4.16 “Karate”
(Dir by Leslie H. Martinson, originally aired on March 8th, 1981)
Ponch and Baker have been assigned to patrol Ponch’s old neighborhood. Ponch says that he feels as if he can see a ghost on every corner. Baker laughs and says that at least they have an easy assignment.
Not so fast, Baker!
Andy Macedon (Lewis Van Bergen) is paying teenagers to steal dirt bikes for him. Macedon went to school with Ponch. Macedon was a few years ahead of him and he was always a bully. Now, Macedon is setting up a crime ring. He’s even got Donny Bonaduce working for him!
Ponch’s solution? Ponch decides to encourage the neighborhood kids to come to the local youth center by having Bonnie teach gymnastics while Ponch teaches karate. Are you surprised to discover that, on top of everything else, Ponch knows karate? You shouldn’t be. You’re watching….
Admittedly, it doesn’t start off well. When Andy Macedon comes down to the Youth Center and personally challenges Ponch to a fight, Ponch backs off. He does it because he doesn’t want to make trouble for the Youth Center but the kids view him as being a coward. If Ponch is ever going to stop Andy Macedon and keep young Rivas (Mario Marcelino) from falling under Macedon’s evil spell, he’s going to have to beat Andy in a karate street fight with everyone watching.
And that’s exactly what Ponch does. Why? Because it’s the Ponch Show and there is nothing that Ponch cannot do!
This episode featured a combination of bass-heavy music and not just Erik Estrada but also Danny Bonaduce doing karate moves so you know it was a classic. I related to Terri (Kari Michealson), the teenager who couldn’t decide if she wanted to be a gymnast or a criminal. I went through the same thing when I was 16. Ballet or crime? Crime or ballet? I compromised by shoplifting makeup after my dance classes.
There is nothing Ponch can’t do. Never forget.
a.k.a. Blood Legacy
In this 1971 film, John Carradine briefly plays Christopher Dean, a wealthy man who hated his family and his servants. He dies before the film actually begins but we do get to see him in flashbacks and we also hear his voice at the reading of his will. Dean leaves a fortune to his children and his servants, but he does so only on the condition that they spend a week at Dean’s estate. If anyone dies or leaves the estate, they will lose their inheritance and the money will be split amongst those who stayed and/or survived. You can see where this is leading, right?
This is actually a promising premise and it’s easy to imagine how it could have inspired an American version of Mario Bava’s Bay of Blood, where one person is killed by another just for that killer to then be killed by someone else until eventually, there’s no one left. Unfortunately, while the characters are all unpleasant and greedy, none of them are as memorable as anyone in Bava’s classic shocker. They’re all generic jerks and, as such, it’s hard to have much of a reaction when they start dying. The film does feature several familiar B-movie stars. Jeff Morrow and Faith Domergue (both of whom were in This Island Earth) appear as brother and sister. Richard Davalos (who played James Dean’s brother in East of Eden) has an eccentric role. Western character actor Rodolfo Acosta plays the sheriff who eventually takes an axe to the forehead. B-movie veteran Buck Kartalian plays Igor, the butler. (His name is actually Igor!) Some of the members of the cast were good actors but few of them are particularly good in this film. I did appreciate the weird energy of Buck Kartalian. John Carradine doesn’t do much but he does deliver his lines with the proper amount of contempt.
The film does have a few vaguely interesting kills. Bees are used as a weapon at one point. A head is found in a refrigerator and Richard Davlos says, “This is just like a horror movie.” Wow, Richard, thanks for sharing! There’s a big twist ending but it really not that impressive of a twist.
Probably the most interesting thing about Blood Legacy is that it’s essentially a remake of Andy Milligan’s The Ghastly Ones. (Director Carl Monson had a habit of ripping off other films. In 1973, he remade Roger Corman’s Little Shop of Horrors. Monson called his remake Please Don’t Eat My Mother. The film starred Buck Kartalian.) Blood Legacy was originally released under the title Legacy of Blood but Milligan was so annoyed at being ripped-off that he later made his own remake of The Ghastly Ones and decided to give it the same title as Carl Monson’s rip-off. Monson changed his film’s title and distributed it under the names Will To Die and Blood Legacy so that it wouldn’t be confused with Andy Milligan’s Legacy of Blood. It makes sense. Why would anyone want their Andy Milligan rip-off to be confused with an actual Andy Milligan film?
The next episode of Hammer House of Horror is The House That Bled To Death but I’ve decided not to share it for this Halloween because it features the death of a kitty and I’m kind of tired of pets dying in horror films. It’s an effective and scary episode, though. It’s on YouTube so if you want to watch it, feel free.
Moving right along, tonight’s episode is Charlie Boy. Graham (Leigh Lawson) and his wife Sarah (Angela Bruce) inherit an statue that they don’t realize also doubles as a really big voodoo doll. After stabbing the statue a bit too many times, Graham comes to realize that he’s accidentally condemned almost everyone he knows to death, including both him and his wife. Thanks to the fast-paced director of Robert Young and the committed performances of the cast, this is an entertainingly macabre episode. It originally aired on October 18th, 1980.
In 1975’s Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary, Cristina Ferrare plays Mary, an American painter who lives and works in Mexico.
Mary seems to be living her ideal life. She paints. She travels. Her work is popular. She has glamorous and wealthy friends. She has her independence. Even when she starts a relationship with a young American diplomat named Ben (David Young), he seems like a genuinely nice guy who respects her need to have a space of her own.
However, Mary has a secret.
Mary is a vampire. She doesn’t have fangs, she doesn’t sleep in a coffin, and she can go out in the daylight. But she has an obsessive need to drink blood. Whenever she can get away from Ben, she’ll pull out a knife and slit the nearest throat. On the beach, a pushy, middle-aged man falls victim to her. Back in the city, she kills her former lover (Helena Rojo), who is not happy that Mary is now dating a man. Mary does her best to hide her murderous inclinations from Ben, even as she finds herself tempted to taste his blood.
However, someone else has recently arrived in Mexico and he appears to be looking for Mary. The Man (John Carradine) dresses in black and wears a mask over his face. The Man also carries a blade and, like Mary, he drinks the blood of his victims. When Mary reads a newspaper story about a murder that she didn’t commit, she realizes that she’s not the only vampire in Mexico. At the film progresses, we learn that Mary and the Man share a very close connection and Mary is forced to confront whether or not she can be both in love and a vampire.
One thing that I appreciated about Mary, Mary Bloody Mary is that it didn’t leave much ambiguity as to whether or not Mary was actually a vampire. At first, it seemed like the movie was going to play the “Is-she-or-isn’t-she” game and maybe suggest that Mary was just mentally disturbed, But instead, the film makes it clear that Mary is dependent upon drinking the blood of others. It’s suggested that vampirism is something that was passed down to her, much like how I inherited my red hair from my father’s side of the family. But, in the end, there’s no doubt that Mary actually is a vampire. Cristina Ferrare occasionally seems miscast as a ruthless killer but, ultimately, she brings the right amount of sophistication to the role and John Carradine is, as always, a nice addition to the cast.
Unfortunately, the majority of Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary is very slowly paced. I can appreciate a film that takes it time but the first 45 minutes of Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary really does sometimes feel like an endurance test. Once The Man shows up, the film’s pace starts to pick up and Mary is very quickly forced to confront the truth of her cursed existence. At times, I got the feeling that the director was trying too hard to convince me that there was more to Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary than there actually was. The film is littered with scenes that suggest the story was meant to be a statement on the human condition but …. nah. Ultimately, it’s just a film about a woman who drinks blood.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989. The entire show can be purchased on Prime!
This week, we start the fifth and final season of Miami Vice.
Episode 5.1 “Hostile Takeover”
(Dir by Don Johnson, originally aired on November 4th, 1988)
The fifth and final season of Miami Vice gets off to a good start with this episode. After opening with some appropriately glitzy scenes of the drug-fueled Miami nightlife, the episode then shows us that Sonny Crockett is still convinced that he’s Sonny Burnett. He has now returned to Miami and, along with Cliff King (Matt Frewer), he is one of the key advisors to drug lord Oscar Carrera (Joe Santos).
Carrera is at war with El Gato (Jon Polito), the brother of Sonny Burnett’s former employer, Miguel Manolo. El Gato, who wears gold lamé, cries over the body of one of his henchmen, and flinches when forced to deal with direct sunlight, is a flamboyant figure. In fact, he’s so flamboyant that it’s initially easy to overlook how determined he is to get revenge for the death of his brother. That means taking down the Carreras family and Sonny Burnett as well.
The Vice Squad knows that Sonny is moving up in the drug underworld but Castillo is firm when asked what they should do about it. Sonny has an active warrant out for murdering a corrupt cop. “Sonny’s not Sonny anymore,” Tubbs says at one point and Castillo seems to agree.
Tubbs goes undercover, making contact with the Carreras cartel. When Sonny meets Tubbs, Tubbs introduces himself as “Ricardo Cooper” and starts speaking in his terribly unconvincing Jamaican accent and that was when I said, “Miami Vice is back!” Sonny doesn’t trust Cooper from the start. “Maybe you’re a cop,” Sonny says. “Not I, mon,” Tubbs replies.
People are dying and, while Sonny doesn’t have a problem with that, the show is also careful to show that Sonny only shoots in self-defense. (It appears the most of the cold-blooded murders are farmed out to Cliff King.) When Oscar Carreras dies, it’s because his poofy-haired son (Anthony Crivello) accidentally shot him when Oscar discovered him with his stepmother. When the son dies, it’s because he was about to shoot Sonny after he caught Sonny with …. his stepmother, again. The Carreras family is so dysfunctional that it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Sonny steps up to take it over.
After promising Castillo that he’ll take out Sonny if necessary, Tubbs meets up with Sonny at beach-side tower. Tubbs looks at Sonny and suddenly says, “Sonny, it’s me, Rico.” Sonny stare at Tubbs. “Do you remember me?” Tubbs asks.
“Sure,” Sonny suddenly says, “You’re Tubbs.”
Three gunshots ring out as the episode ends.
OH MY GOD, DID SONNY KILLS TUBBS!?
We’ll find out next week. For now, I’ll say that — after a disappointing fourth season — this was exactly how Miami Vice needed to start things off for Season 5. Seriously, if you’re going to have Sonny get hit with amnesia, you might as well just go for it and take things to their logical extreme.
Next week …. is Tubbs dead? I hope not, mon.
Through the Shattered Lens 